


can't see the stop sign

by plinys



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-08 17:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19475587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: And for the words written at the bottom in a post-script: 'Bring Crowley if you can manage to convince him'.[or: Aziraphale, Crowley, and an empty stretch of road]





	can't see the stop sign

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't get the image of the two of them on a road trip stopping at some small town diner out of my mind so i wrote a whole fic to go with it. 
> 
> (title is from dream glow by bts because it's what grace would have wanted)
> 
> (also dedicated to shruti who saved me via gas money)
> 
> (not beta'd because.... i don't have anyone to beta it...)
> 
> enjoy?

There’s no more prophecies to guide them, no more words laid out years ago by someone who once knew better than the rest of them. No high offices or  _ low  _ offices to report to. Just time, and endless amount of it, and the lives of everyone around them slowly moving on. 

Still, when Anathema writes him a letter, mailed the old fashioned way, an invitation to a wedding, which may or may not have been her ancestor’s one last prophecy. It does feel something like fate. 

Like the universe planned for this moment in particular.

And for the words written at the bottom in a post-script:  _ Bring Crowley if you can manage to convince him.  _

“Ah, of course.” 

*

“You are aware that there are quicker ways for us to get to California, aren’t you?”

He read once in a book, of course - because Aziraphale has read a great number of books, quite contrary to the demon sitting next to him who would insist time and time again that he was  _ Jared, 19  _ if ever asked to read anything - that the great stretch of open road was meant to be a wonderful thing. 

Aziraphale did not believe everything he read in books, certainly some of them were filled with complete and utter nonsense, useless words meant to pack a set of pages. 

Though, of course, the person writing those words had been referring to the great  _ human  _ need to explore. To understand the Earth in the only way that they could, by reaching out to every part of it that they had not seen, and claiming it as their own. 

The person who had written those words had not been imagining this particular set of circumstances. 

Two distinctly unearthly beings, in a Bentley, in America of all places, with nothing but the sounds of the  _ Best of Queen  _ to keep them company, and a silence that was tense with things neither of them were yet willing to admit.

If there had even been a time for it, Aziraphale imagines that the moment has long since passed them by. 

There was some point where surely they were supposed to talk about this. 

But the end of the world had been put on hold. 

And each of their respective sides convinced to leave them alone for eternity. 

Somehow in the aftermath of all of that, of all the things unspoken between them, of saving each other, he imagines that they were supposed to talk about  _ this _ , the thrum of tension between them.

There had been a moment where they were supposed to, in hindsight he realizes, that  _ lunch date  _ was meant to be a tipping point. He was meant to cross the line carefully put up between the two of them after centuries of pining. 

But Aziraphale had been unwilling to bring it up, unwilling to spoil things by being the one to make the first move. And while he cannot for certain say that was going on in Crowley’s mind, he imagines it must have been something similar.

Because hours had turned into days, which had turned into weeks and then months, and somehow despite no longer technically being on opposite sides, they were still… Here, with some sort of wall between them. 

A silence that stretches on following his question. 

His attempt at conversation between them.

Things had never been awkward before, and the fact that they were now was… Frustrating to say the least. 

“If you don’t want to be here, you can just say so.”

And that’s… That’s not what he meant at all.

He knows Crowley’s eyes are on the road, the endless stretch of road that is set out before them. Miles and miles of nothing but trees and other cars, and a sense of nothingness that seeps down somewhere deep inside of him. 

“I was the one that invited you as my plus one,” Aziraphale sighs. “If I didn’t want to be here, I would have said so a long time ago.” 

Crowley makes a non-committal noise at that.

“It’s just an awfully long drive, is all.”

“Forty-three hours,” Crowley supplies, then pauses correcting himself. “Well, forty-two hours and thirty-seven minutes at this point.”

“Right,” Aziraphale says with a nod, “Well then…” 

He’s not certain what he means to say next.

They can’t talk about the tension.

Not really.

Not yet.

Not with forty-three more hours here. 

But he feels the need to say something, to do  _ something  _ other than stare out the window of Crowley’s Bentley and way for time to pass. 

Somehow hundreds and thousands of years could pass in the blink of an eye, but the hour that he’s been sitting in this car thus far seems like the longest hour of his eternal life. 

“Why don’t you read a book or something,” Crowley suggests. 

“Well yes, that would have been… But I didn’t think that we’d leave so suddenly when I mentioned it and I didn’t really have time to pack and-” 

He stops talking suddenly, as Crowley tears his eyes away from the road, hands off the wheel as he turns around in the seat to reach into the back.

“The road! For heaven’s sake!”

It’s instinct that has Aziraphale reaching forward to grab the steering wheel to hold them steady on their path. With the speed that they’re going hands off the wheel could easily result in a car accident, and while neither of them could actually die from something so minor, it would be a bit of a bother to put themselves bad together, and that doesn’t even account for the possibility of hitting a human - which actually could die - with their car, and what an inconvenience that would be. 

The moment doesn’t last for long, not really, before Crowley is turning back around. One hand going back to the steering wheel while the other holds out something to Aziraphale. 

The first thing he notices is that it’s not a  _ book  _ really, not in the usual sort of way. There’s no stories or prophecies or histories between its pages. Rather it’s a guide to road tripping across America, the sort of thing a traveler would pick up before hitting the road, complete with maps and hotel guides. 

The second thing he notices is that the book is well worn, pages dogeared and bookmarked, highlighted throughout. Just holding it Aziraphale can feel the energy coming off, the care that whoever had owned this book before had gone through reading each and every one of its pages. 

Whoever had owned this book before.

_ Crowley _ .

“It’s a bit outdated,” Crowley says. In a tone of voice that is meant to be casual, even though after all these years of knowing each other, Aziraphale can see right through it. There’s no way he can be unaware of all the energy that this  _ well loved  _ travel guide holds. Surely, not? “But it should keep you entertained for a bit.” 

Which begs the question of how long had Crowley planned something like this.

A great trip through the Americas.

Something so revered by humans. 

Something which he must have thought of and planned out years ago, for one day to inevitably take. 

Aziraphale cannot help but wonder if in this original plan for a trip such as this, Crowley had imagined him coming along with. Or if the casual invitation to a wedding in San Francisco had been just an opening for the recently jobless demon to take a trip he had always intended to, even with a possible unwanted plus one. 

He could ask.

It would be so easy to ask.

But as he has done for so long now, he holds his tongue, and simple says in a voice almost too quiet to hear over the music, “Thank you.” 

*

He loses himself between the pages, between the open stretches of road, and the passing of time. Minutes turn into hours now, and the silence between them, while still there and constant doesn’t seem as bad for a moment. 

There’s something about it, thumbing through the American travel guide and looking at all the pages that Crowley bookmarked, secrets hidden between folded pages and highlighted words.

( “This poor book is all mistreated and marked up,” Aziraphale had said upon first opening it. “Couldn’t you have been gentler with it?”

“When have I ever been  _ gentle  _ with anything?” )

There doesn’t seem to be much order to it. Small towns circled and notes written in the margins in a mix of languages that they’ve learned and spoken over the years. There’s even one page covered entirely in gaudy yellow highlighter for what seems to be no logic reason.

But there’s something about it… 

One of the reasons he’s always been drawn to used books.

The idea that a well loved piece of literature carries some love between its pages - the tears shed over a heartbreaking moment, the heat and passion of a steamy one, the gentle childlike wonder packed in a picture book - that he’s always been able to sense.

A heavenly gift.

He feels it now, despite all of Crowley’s mistreatment of the one book that he seems to own. 

He had taken care planning this trip. 

Aziraphale looks up, means to casually remark on that, or make some joke about yet another highlighted page of restaurants. But when he looks up all thought freezes at once.

He had noticed while reading that Crowley had been singing along with the music, just subtle a little under his breath, but he hadn’t truly processed it. Not until this moment. Now though having nothing else to focus on, he cannot help but notice it.

The way the sun is just getting close to setting, the light reflecting off the open road in front of them, the orange glow of it caught on Crowley’s glasses, his lips forming the small whispers of lyrics to yet another Queen song, the way his fingers drum against the steering wheel.

It’s silly. 

Aziraphale swears he’s seen one hundred other moments just like this. 

And yet for some reason.

This one moment in particular, seems so much more significant than any other.

He doesn’t mean to stare, really doesn’t, but he can’t help himself. Can’t help the way the whole universe seems to pause a moment and wait for something to happen.  _ Anything _ . As if fate had been waiting just for this moment in particular to occur. 

To steal his breath away. 

So suddenly.

So easily. 

To - 

“Are you hungry?”

He’s so startled, the sudden break away from his thoughts, and when Crowley turns away from the road to glance at him. Eyes hidden behind those glasses, but the amusement in his expression and having caught Aziraphale off guard still there. 

Aziraphale’s voice comes out smaller than he intends, more like a whisper than anything else, “What?”

Crowley lets out a noise that could almost be a laugh.

And Aziraphale tears his gaze away from him, back to the stretch of road in front of them, voice as casual as he can manage - “I suppose, I could eat.”

*

The diner isn’t much. 

Empty mostly, which makes sense.

Who even really eats in dinners anymore? In this day and age. The peak of diners as an eating establishment had long since passed, without Aziraphale ever really bothering to make time during their height of fashion to ever visit one. 

He cannot imagine that the one they are in now was ever anything so splendid. 

The cushions in the booth are faded, discolored from the sun and too many years here. The menus are cheap laminated plastic, sticky on one side where someone must have spilled a soda on them. The floors squeak under his shoes as their waitress, a woman with tired eyes and hair that refuses to hold a curl, leads them to open of the many open booths. 

There’s only two other patrons there, a man in a booth all alone, and a police officer up at the bar. 

Over the speaker some dim echo of a pop tune makes a meager attempt to fill the room, at least this is a change of pace from the Crowley’s particular taste which Aziraphale had been subjected to for every other moment of this journey. 

The place really is nothing remarkable or significant, nothing splendid or fancy, but for some reason Aziraphale finds himself liking the place. He’s always liked small towns such as these, ones that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of the universe, to anyone other than their scant inhabitants. A pocket of the world that God made without thought, that still manages to become the whole world for those few that never do much more than crossover town lines - “Quaint,” he declares it to be as they settle down into their seats. 

The thing is, they don’t need to eat.

Not really.

It’s a want more than a need, unearthly bodies such as theirs more than capable of sustaining themselves without the sort of generous helpings of breakfast foods that establishments such as these tend to offer at all hours of the day. 

But that doesn’t stop Aziraphale from frowning across the table when Crowley only orders a black coffee. 

Crowley meets his gaze, letting out a dismissive noise -“Don’t start, angel.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Aziraphale points out.

“You were thinking about it.” 

“I wasn’t aware that you could read minds,” Aziraphale continues, before sighing, unwilling to keep of the farce of not knowing what Crowley means. His voice takes on a softer note before he says, “I worry about you.”

“You don’t need to.” 

“Yes, well, I’ve spent centuries doing it, so it’s a bit late to stop now,” Aziraphale says, folding his hands in front of him. 

Looking across the table, he cannot help but think of the last time they did this.

The day after the end of the world.

The first day of the beginning of the rest of their immortal lives.

Why hadn’t he followed up on that date?

Calling Crowley around for a cup of tea, or another walk through the park, or even invited himself over to binge one of those sitcoms that Crowley always finds far too fascinating. Instead, he’d just let it drop… Because it was easier. 

It was easier than adding another worry onto the list that only seems to grow every moment that they’re around each other. 

“I’ll always worry about you,” Aziraphale says softly, not really certain that he even wants their waitress to hear. “I always have, since the very beginning.” 

Crowley doesn’t have anything to say in reply to that.

Not to Aziraphale, at least, but he slides out of the booth to go up to where their waitress is behind the bar. Saying something too quietly for Aziraphale to catch up on before returning to his seat as if nothing out of the ordinary had even happened. 

But when the food comes out twenty minutes later, there’s two warm plates of pancakes, and Aziraphale isn’t certain what to make of that. 

*

The sunsets in the parking lot of that diner.

Orange, golden hues, that turn to purple, and then to the dark night sky. 

Standing side by side.

The silence is all too much, and Aziraphale finds himself saying anything to break the silence - “I suppose we’re lucky that they decided upon a fall wedding, not a winter one.”

The  _ weather  _ of all things.

He internally chides himself the second that the words are out there.

“If you wanted my jacket you could just say so.”

“I wasn’t - Oh I - I meant.” 

But Crowley is already slipping that big black jacket off and draping it over Aziraphale’s shoulders. And any protest Aziraphale might have had about that being unnecessary is silenced by the heaving feeling of the jacket over him. It smells like Crowley, but more than that, it carries his energy within it.

Blanketing Aziraphale in energy that is distinctly demonic, but not entirely unwelcome. 

He keeps it on when the sun finally fully sets and they get back into the car, tucks himself into the jacket, and rests his head against the window slowly slipping into a soft slumber, a feeling of comfort overwhelming him. 

It is hours later, when Aziraphale wakes to the feeling of the car pulling off the highway. A stop light causing Aziraphale to jerk forward in the seat just so, just enough to have his eyes fluttering open, as his mind tries to catch up and remind himself what is going on and where he is.

In Crowley’s car.

Wearing Crowley’s jacket.

Listening to Crowley singing along the radio once more. 

“Good morning, angel.” 

Apparently his rousing had not gone unnoticed. 

Aziraphale fully opens his eyes, blinking past the street lights, and focusing on where the Bentley displays the time back to him - the numbers  _ 1:08  _ blink back at him.

Technically morning. 

If one could even call it that. 

“Good morning,” Aziraphale echoes. 

Crowley explains, in tones softer than Aziraphale is used to hearing from him, that he’s tired of looking at the road. But he knows a motel around here that will conveniently have one room left open for the night just for them. And that they will be able to continue their journey once the actually morning has appeared. 

Aziraphale nods. He wouldn’t mind sleeping in an actual bed instead of in the passenger seat of the car. Still, with a few hours of rest behind him, Aziraphale feels the need to offer. “If you’d like, I could drive for a bit?”

The Bentley comes to a sudden stop, thankfully the road is empty, but the movement still calls Aziraphale to jerk forward, his body nearly colliding with the dash, were it not for Crowley’s hand against his chest holding him in place. 

If they were human Aziraphale imagines that his heart would have been beating so loudly that there would be no way for Crowley to miss it.

As that is not the case, all Aziraphale manages is to let out a gasp that’s a little too sudden and real for comfort.

When Crowley speaks, it’s to the  _ car _ not to Aziraphale - “He was only joking.” 

  
  


*

He wakes first in the morning. 

Stays there for a moment with the sunlight streaming in through the windows, before glancing at the other bed in the hotel room.

Crowley, still asleep, half hidden under the blankets. 

Peaceful, for once. 

If he’s being honest with them, Aziraphale has known for while that what he feels for Crowley is not just a simple innocent thing. 

But in the light of a new morning, it feels like the very beginning all over again. 

*

“I bought us coffees,” he says, hands holding too tight to the foam cups from the gas station across the street.

Hating the little bit of nervousness that seems to settle within his chest. 

Crowley, freshly showered, just smiles that familiar  _ tempting  _ smile at him - “Thanks, angel.” 

*

Ohio is endless stretch of farmlands.

Indiana isn’t much better. 

Lots of open roads.

Endless stretches of time and - 

“How long have you been planning this trip?” 

“Since about ten minutes after you told me the wedding was in California.” 

“No, I’m not talking about how quickly did you concoct a scheme to trap me in this death trap of a car of yours,” Aziraphale corrects. “I mean, the maps, and diners, and hotels - you can’t keep pretending it’s all a lucky coincidence. You haven’t even looked at a map once.” 

“Humans invited this wonderful thing called a GPS, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but-”

“Crowley!”

“I don’t know.” There’s something about his voice. Too flippant. It’s going to be lie, whatever he says, and Aziraphale has spent far too many years learning when Crowley was and wasn’t telling the truth, to miss such an obvious hint. “I make a lot of plans that I don’t always follow through with.” 

“Contingency plans.” 

“Exactly.” 

“You once called holy water a contingency plan.”

It’s not meant to sound accusing, but it does.

Years.

They’d fought years over this.

Over the way Crowley always risked too much, played himself a little too close to danger, and always came up with these  _ plans  _ to run just in case things went bad. 

Certainly, their last plan had worked, but that had been prophetic, and even then as Aziraphale had stood in hell, bathing in water that he knew could not hurt an angel such as himself. He could not help but feel it, the same sort of worry, and panic that was always there when it came to Crowley. 

When it came to the idea of losing him.

“Not this again,” Crowley says, speeding up the Bentley, as if he could run away from this conversation.

As if they were not in the car together.

On this journey together. 

“You can’t run away from everything,” Aziraphale says. 

Crowley had once offered to run away with him.

To the stars.

When the world was ending.

To some place that could just be theirs. 

“It’s worked out so far,” Crowley says, ever stubborn, before turning up the music. 

“And what happens when it stops working?” 

Crowley pointedly doesn’t answer.

*

The pass a billboard somewhere in Indiana, big bold letters that read:

_ HELL IS REAL _

And the silence that has been lasting for hours finally breaks, and Crowley lets out a noise, almost a laugh and says, “No shit.” 

*

The easy driving that they had experienced for much of the first day catches up with them on the second. Traffic, an inevitable curse of any traveler, leaving them stuck in the same spot for so long that Aziraphale supposes he could probably get out of the car and walk there faster. 

At least he’s not as bad as Crowley, whose hasn’t flex and unflex against the steering wheel clear agitation at the fact that they have not moved for the better part of an hour.

Aziraphale sits up a bit more in his seat, as though that will make any difference, and tries to gaze ahead of them to see what could have all the cars stopped. 

It’s probably a car accident.

Someone going too fast, and not paying attention.

_ Too fast _ .

That’s a feeling that Aziraphale has known all too well lately. It’s almost nice, this traffic, stopping them. Forcing them to slow down. To breathe in. 

“I hope nobody is hurt,” Aziraphale says, a minor thought, not much more than a whisper. 

Not really meant to be heard. 

But Crowley hears it. 

He can see the way his lips turn down into a frown, before he digs his phone out of one of his many pockets to check on something. Aziraphale would normally use this as an opportunity to protest against texting and driving but seeing as they have not moved for the last thirty minutes. Instead, he just purses his lips in mild disapproval.

Until Crowley puts his phone down and says, “The toll system is out of order.” 

“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale says, “Tolls, that was one of  _ ours  _ I think, working together for the betterment of society and all.”

“And now it’s trapped us here,” Crowley replies. “Full circle.”

“A minor inconvenience.” 

“A mistake.”

“I’ve made a few,” Aziraphale admits, then corrects himself, “We all have.”

He could make a list of his mistakes. Too many of them really. Things that the  _ higher ups  _ had frown down on him for. Or things that they had ordered him to do which had hurt others in turn. It was a complicated moral compass that Aziraphale was operating under these days. 

But arguable, one of his biggest, and one of his  _ best  _ mistakes, was sitting right next to him. 

Crowley lets out an annoyed sigh as the honking starts up again and turns on his blinker enough to pull them off the highway and off onto the shoulder instead. Putting the car in park, out of the way of the unmoving traffic. It will be difficult to merge back on once the toll system returns to functionality and the cars start moving again. 

There’s nothing really in the way of scenery just an endless stretch of corn fields because this is the middle of America and really all that ever seems to grow here is corn.

Still when Crowley gets out of the car, all dark layers in the midwestern heat, Aziraphale follows him out. 

They don’t go far from the car, not really out into the corn, more of an excuse for both of them to stretch their legs. To get the energy from sitting in one place for too long out of their systems. 

For a moment Aziraphale ignores the cars on the road behind them, and looks out at the blue sky and the cornfields, and it’s all so quaint and good and peaceful and - “Beautiful.”

Somewhere, behind him, Crowley echoes his sentiments, “Yeah, it really is.”

But for some reason he feels like they’re talking about completely different things.

*

The traffic eventually lets up enough for them to take the nearest exit, a wild through small town roads, endless stretches of cornfields giving away to a small collection of restaurants and stores. The place is a tourist trap really, the gas stations nearest the highway with marked up prices meant to entire the weary traveler. 

A small motel in the middle of the town advertising a vacancy and free cable.

Crowley pulls into a diner with a sign that proclaims the little diner to have the  _ World’s Best Crepes _ . It’s a claim that is certainly not true, Aziraphale, who has spent much of his very long life sampling all the wonderful foods that the Earth has to offer.

But there’s something about it the little claim, that has Aziraphale smiling, in spite of himself. 

“You’ll have to tell me if you like them,” Crowley says, “After all, they’re the World’s Best Crepes.” 

When Aziraphale says, “Thank you,” just a touch soft, seeing through all of Crowley’s bravado, he swears for a second as he glances over that there’s a hint of something like blush high up on Crowley’s cheekbones. But the demon looks away before Aziraphale can fully confirm it.

*

“God, how long has it been?”

“Oh, don’t bring he up and ruin the mood,” Aziraphale says, wrinkling his nose in disapproval. 

Though he knows the answer.

Looking at the  _ one  _ bed in the hotel room, rather than the two that they had last night. 

He can distinctly remember the last time they shared a  _ bed _ . 

It’s not like they haven’t done this before. 

Time is long and endless, it’s not something about love. Not really. Not in the beginning, Just a way to release the tension, a way to pass the time. But something had changed years ago, and they hadn’t shared a space like this for nearly eighty years. 

Not until that night after the end of the world, and then it had just been  _ innocent _ , needing to be in each other’s space. Needing to remind themselves that they had survived even when heaven and hell was against them. And that their plan would work and that they would continue to survive. 

“I’ll take the floor,” Crowley says, already grabbing one of the pillows as if to actually do so.

“Don’t be absurd,” Aziraphale insists. “It’s not as though we haven’t… It doesn’t have mean anything, not this time…” 

Crowley hesitates for just a moment before setting the pillow back down, and saying, “Suit yourself.” 

It doesn’t have to mean anything.

He tells himself this even as he slips in bed beside Crowley, all too aware of the distance between them. 

It doesn’t have to mean anything.

But it does. 

Oh Heavens it does. 

  
  


*

Crowley is there with breakfast when Aziraphale wakes up. Or well a banana and a cup of coffee, black, but it’s the thought that counts. 

“Thank you,” he says, quiet and suddenly unsure of himself. 

He wants to say so much more than that.

But he’s not sure.

No words feel right, so instead he just asks, “Did you sleep well?”

“You cuddle in your sleep,” Crowley says, as an answer. “It’s gotten worse than I remembered.”

But there’s not disapproval in his voice, instead there’s a small smile on his lips. 

Aziraphale takes a sip of his coffee, it’s almost lukewarm and he has to wonder how long it had been since Crowley had woken up. 

“I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience.” 

“Don’t be.”

*

Somehow the atmosphere in the car has become more tense and Aziraphale wants to say something. To remise on all their years together. To talk about what is happening now. Or just to say anything to cut across the silence.

But he can’t.

So he picks up the book.

The travel guide that Crowley had carefully annotated. 

And suddenly flipping through those very pages he had studied days before, things start to make sense. They don’t go to every highlighted restaurant, every small motel, or every tourist trap. There’s too many marked but they all have one thing in common. 

As Aziraphale reads the descriptions it becomes quite clear that these aren’t places Crowley would usually frequent. They’re softer than that. Domestic looks at the human life, small diners, and little bakeries. He counts not just one, but twenty-six used book stores highlighted. 

Twenty-six places that Crowley, self proclaimed hater of reading, would normally be caught dead in.

Twenty-six places that stir up feelings of nostalgia in Aziraphale just reading their descriptions in the travel guide.

“Oh,” he says, quiet.

So quiet that it might have been missed, had their journey not been silent for the last few hours. 

Crowley doesn’t say anything.

But he doesn’t have to.

Aziraphale has known him for too long not to see the signs.

Not to notice the way his hands tighten slightly against the steering wheel, suddenly tense. 

“Oh Crowley,” he continues, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I thought you know,” Crowley replies.

And heavens, he did.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Aziraphale always knew. 

“You can ask,” Crowley says. 

And suddenly the question he had asked before comes back again.

“When you planned this trip out, did you plan to go alone or…” 

_ Or _ …

As if it wasn’t so obvious now. 

“I wasn’t running away,” Crowley says. “I was keeping us safe, I always plan everything through when it comes to you. I almost lost you, angel, fuck, I almost lost everything.”

The car coming to a sudden stop is not as surprising as it should be.

But Aziraphale jerks forward at the sudden stop, only not completely falling forward because Crowley’s hand is there against his chest holding him in place. The facsimile of a thing in his chest, the part of him that has always belonged to Crowley, thrums anxiously at his touch. 

Thankfully the stretch of highway they’re on is empty, another back road, in a town that doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of the universe, but that, in  _ this  _ moment matters more than anything else. 

Crowley’s hand is off of him as quick as it was there, the door opening as the demon hops out, standing on the side of the road, so much anxious energy in every line of him that Aziraphale would have to be blind not to sense it.

He’s not sure what compels him to follow Crowley out. 

But he moves without thinking. 

For the first time since the beginning of time, he doesn’t think things through, just acts on impulse. Kisses Crowley there, in the middle of the road, in the middle of nowhere, without any chance of regretting it. Pouring every complicated feeling, every emotion, that he’s ever had for Crowley into one kiss. 

And it feels like a minor miracle when Crowley kisses him back. 

But maybe that’s just fate.

Just another ineffable thing. 

*

The sun rises, in yet another motel room. 

Crowley fast asleep beside him. 

Aziraphale shifts just slightly, just enough to grab his phone from where it had fallen to the ground out of his pants pocket the night before, and send a text to Anathema with just four simple words: 

_ We might be late _ . 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> come talk to me on twitter @ plinys


End file.
